the future is here (but where are you?)
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: We possess hovercrafts and the technology to genetically engineer children into soldiers (and monsters). We possess the power to level cities with the flick of a wrist and to heal with the press of a finger. But what we do not posses is the freedom to live in peace. We were born to fight. We were born to kill. (Futuristic Naruto AU)
1. Chapter 1

NotesFromCaitlin: Don't expect too much on this, okay. It was just an idea I had. A slightly stupid one. I didn't even really read over this. I just kind of wrote it and posted it. But if you like this and would like to see more (i.e. some of the stuff I talk about after the story at the bottom), please let me know. Otherwise I'll just shove the ideas away and let them rot. And yes, I know, it does seem kind of YA novel-ish. But I don't care. So hah.

Update: I've gone through this, thrown in a little more make-believe future lingo, and fixed the tense issues where I caught them. I've also written a second chapter for this now, which I should be posting before the night is done. If I haven't posted it soon please assume I've fallen into the youtube tunnel and that I'm still watching let's plays. Please also assume that I'm a terrible piece of shit, because I am. Enjoy again!

Dedication: Sonya. Because whenever I write Itachi I think of you and it encourages me.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except a sleepy, cuddly kitten.

* * *

Kisame had once had a book that described moving at high speeds as _the world rushed around them_, but Itachi had been modified at an early age to be able to keep up with extreme speeds and process what he was seeing at a higher rate than others. The buildings that he sped past were noted in his mental map in finite detail, despite the fact that the air being pushed into his face by the speeds of the buzzcycle was forcing his eyes into slits. He missed his goggles more than ever, but he also missed the clips that had been holding his hair into braids; now when he turned some of his hair struck against his face, the pain slight but persistent. However he could not waste brain power on whimsical wishes for personal affects, for all his brain power had to be bent toward the layout of the gridcity below and before his. What wasn't spent on the gridcity's layout needed to be turned toward creating an escape plan, since the pursuit that licked at his heels like an eager puppy was coming closer with every passing heartbeat.

Or at least his pursuers seemed to resemble the dogs in the old cartoons Kisame hoarded on their ship's motherboard. Their intelligence was questionable, their persistence bordered on obssessive, and they absolutely refused to leave him alone. He felt his thought process start to branch out, his brain jumping on the tangent as he started to wonder what an actual dog would be like. The thought twitched, grew, and then expanded until he was wasting brain power on what dogs had been like when those cartoons had been created; did they smell and what they smelled like, how large had they grown, each question spawning more until Itachi was forced to shut it down with pain. He tilted the buzzcycle he was piloting so that he caught his calf against a windowsill as he shot by.

It was one of the many windowsills in the gridcity that had a current running through it, to keep the vermin off. Itachi had chosen it for that specific reason, as he knew the model was one of the brands that had extra strong currents generated so that the vermin foolish enough to land on the sill would die instantly. The pain was enough to cry out, the air forced into his mouth causing him to choke momentarily. But as the pain flared he felt his mind sharper, closer to full capacity than it had been, but not quite.

He didn't have much longer. He had to escape. He tightened his grip on the controls, thankful that his bodily functions had yet to start failing him. All he had to do was lose his pursuers and he could get the poison in his veins taken care of before it wrecked his system completely. But until then he was an easily distracted mess of perfectly engineered destruction piloting a damaged buzzcycle at speeds that would have acquired the attention of the gridmonitors if they hadn't already been on his tail.

Tail? He didn't have a tail. Would having a tail have helped him escape? What would it feel like to have a tail?

He gritted his teeth and fought the urge to become distracted once more. He should have expected they would use a poison like this, one specifically engineered to keep prisoners distracted so that their escapes were sloppily and easily stopped, but he had been foolish. Now it burned through him until his heart shuttered and his mind was a monster he hardly recognized.

This time when he clipped himself against a building's electric edge it was by accident. He hissed, careful to keep his mouth shut this time, and drew his arm closer to his side as he hunched farther over the cycle. He wished again for trivial things, this time for a helmet, but even more than that he wished for the capability to turn around and catch a glimpse of the people behind him. His wish only doubled at the sound of a crash as one of their pursuit crafts supposedly followed his path a little too closely and crashed into the building. But that was only a guess, a guess with a 23% chance of being incorrect, a chance he wouldn't have bet on even if-

He swore gutturally through gritted teeth. He needed to lose them. He forced his eyes open more and fought to pay attention to his surroundings. The edges of the ritzy buildings with their shiny chrome surfaces were just ahead of him, meaning there would be more cameras, more people, more risk. He needed to lose them now.

Or maybe they needed to lose him.

Itachi leant forward, pressing the nose of the cycle toward the ground. The buzzcycle dove like one of those supposedly comical birds in Kisame's cartoons- _stop thinking about those cartoons, you need to focus, focus focus focus focus focus foc-_ and Itachi felt himself fall victim to gravity. He fought to keep from toppling headfirst over the bike- _cycle, not a bike, bike is a silly, ancient term, don't use it, why did they even call it a bike, wait, stop, you need to focus, focus focus focus focus focus-_ and he tightened his legs around it, holding his breath to keep from choking as air pressed against his face and up his nose, choking him, smothering him, and then-

He yanked up, fingers scrambling at the controls. He used to be able to do this without blinking, without pausing, without the vicious jump of his stomach as it fought to leave his body, but the poison was destroying him, taking his brain from him and without his brain he was nothing, he was just a man and men didn't win in this world, in this life, how-

The rear engines hit the ground. His attempts at straightening the buzzcycle hadn't been timed correctly and the jolt steadied him, focusing his brain once more. Pain. He needed more pain. He needed an escape. He took a corner too fast, too low, and the heat from an exhaust pipe on a nearby building scalded his skin. The pain sparked his brain and with it an idea was born. He twisted his fingers along the controls, tightened his legs around the device, and pointed the cycle toward the nearest sewer hut.

Uchiha Itachi, most wanted criminal in all of the southern country of Fire, and one of the most intelligently engineered human beings in the entire world, spared only one glance back at the dozens of police pursuit crafts racing after him. A small, bitter smile curled his lips as he drew closer to his target. He had one last thought before the buzzcycle crashed into the exhaust hut and he lost control.

_Acidic sewage was said to sting in open wounds an awful lot, wasn't it?_

* * *

NFC2: Okay, so. I had an idea like. Six hours ago? IDK. Anyway. I was like. Futuristic Naruto! Where there are robots and genetically engineered people! Like. Kisame is engineered with enhanced shark genes! And they're supposed to be soldiers (like the ninjas in actual Naruto) but, well, because I have a super awful crush on all of the Akatsuki, it's mostly centered around them. And how they become a thing and rebel. Because I said so. And this was supposed to be longer and involve Sakura (because ItaSaku is the best, suck my strap on, okay), but I didn't wanna time jump in this. So. Maybe there will be more. If I can make the words come. But just think about it guys. Sasori hacking and controlling robots instead of puppets. Kisame's weird shark genes affecting his hunger. Sakura having undergone advanced strength programs to master the power to level buildings with a punch to become the Ultimate Weapon when Naruto crumples after Sasuke leaves. (SAKURA INTERACTING WITH ITACHI IN FUTURISTIC SETTINGS.) Okay, okay, shutting up now, goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

NotesFromCaitlin: Hey guys. I was prodded to continue this and I am! I have a faint idea of what needs to happen, so as long as the words don't fail me we should be good to go. FYI I updated and changed the first chapter a little bit, so I would suggest rereading that. But other than that, please enjoy this chapter!

OtherNotes: After this chapter I'm planning on going back in time in the story and switching to Sakura's POV. Just so you know what you're getting into here.

Update: I had to tweak things. The small details keep changing in my head. Sorry.

Dedication: To smileysgoboing who prodded me to write more of this and had a few Naruto rant pow-wows with me! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except a shitton of make-up future gobbly-gook that I had way too much fun with.

* * *

The world was fuzzy and distant when Itachi's brain came back online. He blinked at the sky, smog and dust covering what had once been black ink and twinkling lights, or so the stories said. Growing up in Konoha Itachi had never met anyone who had seen the stars in the sky. They had been a myth; stars had been the only bedtime story that had stuck with him into adulthood, leaking into the leftover code-dreams he had until everything glittered beneath his eyes.

"Take a deep breath," a soft voice instructed him. His heart arched toward panic before he wrestled it back under control. The voice continued, level and even, which he knew was done one purpose to give him something easy to focus on. The woman leaning above him had gone for the speech training instead of modification, an unusual route. Most took the faster modification instead, but not this woman. This woman was different.

The thought was strange and random, but when he waited for that thought to spark ten different questions in his mind it was quiet instead. He felt the tug toward a thought, one about the woman above him, a tangent that could have continued on and on, but he carefully pushed back that urge until it settled away. Then there was just silence and the faint presence of distant pain. He breathed easier once he had proof that the poison had been taken care of and the voice continued.

"I got out all the poison I could, so it shouldn't harm your organs, but your mind should still be a little bit jumbled. You need to stay calm and let it pass."

"You're late," Itachi said. It almost took too much energy to keep from mumbling, but it was something to focus on so he didn't mind too much. He blinked again and the fuzzy outline of the world sharpened. Eventually he followed her instructions and took a long breath, slow and deep, but it was only after she jabbed her finger into his shoulder pointedly that he complied. He could still feel his skin tingling with the chemicals of the sewer pipes, but the pain was strangely far away.

"Pain killers," she said lightly. "It isn't the good stuff, but it was what I could bring."

He scoffed in the back of his throat, but it came out more as a cough.

"Have they upgraded you to read minds now?"

She made a small sound, like a mixture between a laugh and some kind of choked off noise of pain. She shook her head and he tracked the motion of the corner of his eye. More than see it, however, he felt it in the way her hands pressed against his side and transferred the motion to him, jolt by jolt. He breathed deeply again, even more slowly, and fought to lift his head.

"Head down, Uchiha," she snapped. Her electric pink hair was bound in a messy coil at the back of her head, but loose strands stuck to the sweat on her cheeks and neck. She was wearing civilian clothes, ill-fitting and just as neon as her hair. He wondered how she had gotten past the cameras without suspicion like this. Why had no one asked questions?

Sakura rolled her eyes at him and then pressed a hand against his shoulder, forcing him down. He cursed her unnatural strength in his head, but didn't fight her. She huffed at his expression and blew at the wisp of pink hairs that hung before her eyes.

"I wore a hat, you bolt-brained fool. And no," she continued, "before you ask; I'm not reading your mind. That upgrade is still only in the hypothetical stages, which, if you would mind recalling, I've told you before." Her breath puffed vaguely against his neck as she moved closer, but then she leaned back and sighed.

"I know what you're thinking because you're mumbling under your breath."

Itachi scowled at the sky. "I do not mumble," he argued. He considered fighting his way into an upright position and then decided that it wasn't worth it. The painkillers were making him numb, a false state of relaxation that could cost them their lives. But, if he had to be honest, it was better than the sting of the poison and chemicals in his wounds. Sakura gave him an uneven smile, her lips chapped and painted specter red. But her eyes were some kind of blue, the murky but not watery, which made his stomach clench with discomfort. He reached up to touch her cheek and she smiled again, uneven and sad, before pressing his arm back to his side before he could carry the motion very far.

"You're all over the 'screens," Sakura said. He couldn't look at her eyes for long without feeling some kind of glitch in his chest, so he turned back to stare at the sky above him instead. "Your partner's on his way to meet you just before the Wind border. He should be there in three days."

"You're not staying," Itachi said to the smoggy, starless sky. It was not a question and it was not a request. He just spoke at the sky and let her make of it what she would. But then, instead of the indifference he had almost expected, she smacked him lightly on the side of the face with her open palm.

"Hey," he said dryly. "Aren't you supposed to care for the injured?"

"I was also trained to kill someone with three brushes of my hand, you chromehead. Stop being such a blazin' dramaborg, yeah?"

But her harsh words were eased away as her hand came up once more and brushed his hair aside. Her fingertips were cool against his face, since his skin was still flushed from the after affects of the poison and almost drowning in the near boiling sewer fluid. He wondered at the sheer difference between the soft and open nature of her expression and the sharp edge of her voice, like the weapons they had been handed as very small children. He wouldn't admit it unless drugged like he was now, but he wondered a lot about the woman above him.

"You tried to kill the Council," she said suddenly, softly as if someone would overhear. He wanted to roll his eyes at her, since they were so far from the city he could barely see the gleam of the lights from the Barrier in the distance, but he didn't.

"Uchiha," she said sharply, drawing his attention back to her. "You're the most wanted man in the country now. They're calling everyone they can to come to the capital as soon as possible and they're doubling the security. You're on your own now."

The moment felt like one of those utterly terrible sim-borg daytime dramas Kisame indulged in when they were stuck for weeks on end laying low in some shitty little bunker. It felt fake, forced and stilted and unreal, but he knew that what was happening wasn't just a lucid haze-sleep; it was real and it was going to change everything. He closed his eyes as a tight feeling overtook his chest and nodded vaguely up at the genetically engineered medic solider whose hand was still pressed softly against his face.

He had failed the mission and now he had to deal with the consequences.


End file.
